NKP and RF2 - why is NKP superior in terms of raw car handling ?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Jameswesty, Jun 23, 2012.

  1. PLAYLIFE

    PLAYLIFE Registered

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    My point was that nothing was wrong with the car, it didn't have a 'problem' like a broken damper or faulty gearbox.

    Jenson has a problem with adjusting his driving to the car or setting up the car to suit his style, the car wasn't the problem. He consistently had this same issue (tyre temp) previously last few years at McLaren and even more so at Brawn and Honda. It's him, it's not the car.

    Yeh he did lose FP1 but that's not an excuse to be trailing down in the mid-teens when Lewis is punching out very competitive times. SV ran something like only 9 competitive dry laps at Istanbul last year (due to a crash losing a session and then wet a track) before taking pole in the RBR. Not to mention the likes of Hulkenberg, Senna, and quite a few others missing out on FP1 due to a 3rd driver. Missing one session is NOT an excuse for poor performance at this level.

    So no, Jenson had the same car as Lewis. Whether it suits him or not doesn't matter, the point was that the car was the same for both drivers.
     
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  2. PLAYLIFE

    PLAYLIFE Registered

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    The car handling is objective (I didn't say it wasn't) but that is a moot point since the only method of interpretation is through a 'subjective filter' if you will (the driver).

    Again, it's all about perception and we all perceiving things differently.


    To be honest, unless I drive these cars in real life, I'm in no position to say. The only thing I can ASSUME is that the physics algorithms behind the former are more accurate than the latter. But if I based it on my 'feeling' then it may be a different answer as to which feels more real.

    But you're only asking one person, me - that's a worthless opinion, regardless of my experience or knowledge.

    If you asked a statistically representative sample that had no bias or exposure to any of these titles, do you think you would get a definitive answer? My guess is that it would be a resounding no, purely due to differing perceptions.

    So even if you had the perfect physics engine underneath, no fudge factors or anything, you'd still get people shouting it's not realistic. So even though physics is objective it doesn't matter because of the human subjectiveness.

    End of the day for the majority of people, close enough is good enough which goes part of the way explaining why GT5/Forza are infinitely more popular?
     
  3. 88mphTim

    88mphTim racesimcentral.net

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    I'll be adding a car info page to the technology link above soon. It might give you an insight about how we usually work from the designs and manufacturer data, then with multiple teams if we can, to try to represent all the cars built, rather than using one built car as our sole example (along with any big differences it may have to every other car which came out of the factory).

    Obviously it all tends to come down to data, and sometimes you don't get data you need, so you have to run your own physics experiments, and we have in-house software for that.

    The new page actually should help a lot with understanding, I'll post it here if this thread is still going...
     
  4. DrR1pper

    DrR1pper Registered

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    ^Yes please :D
     
  5. Taranta

    Taranta Registered

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    Something wrong with your settings in NKpro or in your drive;

    iRacing is also good but its flaws are unique in their physical; first NTM even most of the cars had to have the distribution of braking 50/50 and only had to drive with 2 feet and brake / accelerate simultaneously.

    rF is quite lower than RF2 (such as a brake, not to mention the physical data of modders: how good? 7-8?)

    My 2 cent
     
  6. Marek Lesniak

    Marek Lesniak Car Team Staff Member

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    That's actually very good and shows, they probably use real data about brakes for a given car.
    If you have both master cylinders ( MC in short ) with the same piston diameter (like in most road cars), the only one possible bias is 50/50.
    In higher race cars you have brake bias balancer. But still, you want to have it set to 50/50 to keep MC rods straight, without side loads. To achieve that, race teams use different MC piston diameters and also different brake pads front vs rear - to keep that "about 50/50" brake balancer for most cases.

    I do exactly the same in my rF mods and if all the data is OK, it works as should.
     
  7. PLAYLIFE

    PLAYLIFE Registered

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    Would really appreciate seeing some real data, thanks :)

    As I said earlier, the fact you can input real data into your physics engine and get expected results means your algorithm is on the right track :cool:
     
  8. Taranta

    Taranta Registered

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    Drift show ;)

    Weight distribution??

    In iRacing2: now with NTM 60-40 on average! wrong?
     
  9. Marek Lesniak

    Marek Lesniak Car Team Staff Member

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    OK, again...
    brake bias - you set it at MC balance bar or directly with different MC piston diameters. Used only for small corrections (for bigger, teams just use MC with different piston diamater).
    Brake torque front vs rear - different brake calipers are used, that compensate for weight distribution. Also, different brake pads are used, if neccesary.
     
  10. jubuttib

    jubuttib Registered

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    I really don't see how some people rave on so much about nKP. Don't take me wrong, it's not bad and considering how small the team behind it is and how it was developed it's frankly remarkable. But the only things in it I really felt were above and beyond other sims were low latency and the directness of the FFB (most likely related), even though I wasn't a huge fan of the FFB otherwise. Otherwise the game fell short on many aspects, small (and frankly odd) choices of cars and tracks being just two. While the FFB was direct and the ultra low latency made the steering feel quite natural, I couldn't for the life of me connect with any of the cars, not with the brakes, the steering wheel nor the accelerator. But it really was more a glorified proof of concept more than anything else, so not bad.

    Seeing what they're doing with AC though gives great hope for the future of Kunos, eagerly looking forward to seeing it in action.
     
  11. Taranta

    Taranta Registered

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    OK, again ...... mmmmmh your friends!

    there is none so deaf as those who do not want to hear, or defend anything ..... ciao
     
  12. Gearjammer

    Gearjammer Registered

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    Someone posted earlier about how an F1 driver could go into a NASCAR car and do well because of the basic feeling of all cars and how a good professional driver could do well in all types of cars for racing. This is not necessarily the case. Sure the top drivers can do fairly well and might be competitive, but it is usually not due to natural characteristics of cars in general, but their knowledge of what to do what a car does something and their ability to adjust to the car and the track. If this were not the case, then there wouldn't be different levels of licenses for professional drivers. Keep in mind also that when an F1 driver goes from F1 to stock cars or any other car type for that matter, he is usually going to a team that has had a lot of experience on the track and has the car pretty close to right as soon as the drivers sits down in the car. This makes things a lot easier to adjust to.

    In the end, it is all about how well a driver can adapt to the car that makes one feel better or worse than another because as has been stated so well before me, the natural laws of physics apply to all cars in all situations and therefore are easy to replicate.

    Now as to why one sim might feel better, I can only guess because I have not looked at any coding or math, but I think that a lot of the sims and games out there fudge the math a little to make the cars a little easier to drive to allow for the less experienced driver to still be able to go around the track or to allow for the lack of real feedback as in what a motion sim tries to replicate, the G forces that we can't feel and therefor are unable to use as input to help us do our best.

    How many of us have really driven a car with 600 Bhp and 500Nm torque? Of those that have, how many have driven them competitively? How many have driven a car with those engine specs in a car that weighs 1800 Lbs? Without first hand knowledge of driving the real car, it would be impossible to say that one sim feels more real than another. We know what we think they should feel like, but with no first hand knowledge, we are all just guessing. The reason that cars handle the way we see them on TV is because there is someone with intimate first hand knowledge of how to drive them showing us the car on the track.

    Want to see my point clearly, watch a pro race, and then watch an amateur race at the same track with the same cars. The lack of knowledge shows quite clearly and they are using the same cars in real situations. Until sim racing gear for the masses is fully able to replicate real life, there is no way to say that one sim is more realistic feeling based on the driver base that most sims have. We all have to rely on the producers of the sim to plug in the math correctly and hope.
     
  13. Jameswesty

    Jameswesty Registered

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    Would you say RF2 is more realistic than Mario cart interims of how the cars move ?

    Now using that same reasoning you can see how its possible to say x sim is more reolistc than y sim , from the perspective of how the car moves and what the driver is doing to move that car.

    Granted when you get to comparing RF2 , i racing and NKP the margins and differences are allot smaller than X sim and a driving game that's not trying to copy reality , but the point is there are differences and you can observe and test those differences.

    Its not inconceivable that you could test the driver input and the output of a real car or compare how a driver drives a real car and responds to a track and how that same driver then responds to a virtual version of that car to then see how close the skills are and how similar any given simulation is to real life.

    Outside of all of that there are some specific objective characteristics that you can isolate from RF2 , NKP , and i - racing that you can catagoricaly say are not realistic and do not occur in real life.

    You can allso clearly see in videos ( although some seem to disagree) how people are driving.

    One thing NKP allows you to do ( and reality lets you do ) which RF2 and especaily RF1 really struggles with , with most cars is let you drive badly / over drive the cars and not end up in a tank slapper or flying off the track yet at the same time causing you to have awful lap times.

    Go and drive a real car or do a track day and you will sea that if you are someone that can feel a car ( IE recover a slide , drift , control back end through corners , catch the car when it pulls out ) then real world cars are FAR FAR FAR more stable more so than that of even NKP.

    evan go-carts show you how stable and easy to recover from a slide real world physics are , even if you go crazy or drive in the wet with them.

    Obviously you have to be what I would call a driver with feel and maybe slightly above average its likely the case allot of people are simply drivers with a lack of feel and would not recover a car in real life so when they talk about how a sim feels they are talking about it from a different perspective.
     
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  14. Jameswesty

    Jameswesty Registered

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    People have the same arguments with flight simulators and again you can see which flight simulators are more realistic by the depth of how the planes respond to input. you can also clearly see by comparing videos of real planes with the movements in simulators to get an idea of which ones are closer to reality.

    Granted planes in many ways are far easer to simulate to a high standard than cars , but the point is as a end user you can see which flight simulators are more or less realistic by simply observing the apparent depth and response in the simulation.
     
  15. Marek Lesniak

    Marek Lesniak Car Team Staff Member

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    That's because you feel G-forces and can react BEFORE your car actually slides. When I was forcing a go-cart to go sideways on a flooded track, I applied opposite lock progressively slightly before sliding (I spent some laps to focus only on that aspect).

    In my opinion, in proper sim you have to learn the car before really pushing it hard on the limit, because you can't feel g-forces. FFB will tell you only when you start sliding - that's slightly too late. You either have to countersteer faster and deeper or you will end up spinning.

    Personaly, I don't want a sim to take account on that and do some fake stuff to give you that "easy to drive" feel, because such attempt will always have an effect on car behaviour in other situations. For me it's perfectly ok and acceptable, we (simracers) have to work harder than real world drivers to control our virtual cars.
     
  16. F2Chump

    F2Chump Registered

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    The two best aspects of rf2 are FFB and dynamic track.....it doesn't matter that much to me if various cars in other sims may or may not have better physics, as none of them have the quality of FFB, FFB I can use to help learn the cars limits on the fly and longterm.

    I'm beginning to agree with NISMO on the BT20, friggin epic FFB all over the place, and awesome controllability.
    One can't be a sim racer for years and never be allowed to describe sim cars as controllable, it's almost like some of you want us to admit the cars are uncontrollable and totally beyond us, and as such, is the most realistic sim ever.
     
  17. Jameswesty

    Jameswesty Registered

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    Have you played NKP ?

    I do agree dynamic track is very interesting and I think for full length league races it will be very entertaining and a good stand out feature of RF2.

    But at the same time in terms of functional FFB ( not bumps and track texture although you can still feel track texture in nkp) I think NKP beats RF2 and RF1 with any wheel around the spec of the GT2 , GT3, G25, G27 or any wheel lower than a CSRE or T500.

    I am desperate to try out the t500 , CSRE and the CSW with RF2 to know for sure how different the game is with better FFB devices and to what level the FFB device colours RF2 , I suspect that due to the nature of RF2 and ISI's background the FFB device will have a huge impact on the sim ( compared to other sim games)

    It would be fantastic for me ( but not my bank) if it turns out that RF2 with high end wheels communicates grip levels in an analog progressive way before the car is lost and the wheel can also counter steer itself fast enough and accurately stop at the right precision and speed to auto correct the car pulling out of corners or to tell me exactly what the path of least resistance is for me to then drive the fastest lap ( as it does in real life) especially with cars as fast as the f1 car that tend to do be very snappy.

    Separate to FFB Cars like the FISI defiantly have some stability and grip issues , but obviously its still in beta and we don't even know what changes are going to be made to the tire model or simulator in general.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 25, 2012
  18. Jameswesty

    Jameswesty Registered

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    Gforces happen 1-1 with how the car is moving not before the car moves it communicates to the driver at the same time the car moves the same with the texture of the road and the comunication of the car grip as it travels through the tires and up into the drivers bum. ( if anything there is a minute delay in real life as the forces move through the tires suspension and into the car body obviously depends on the type of car and how its set-up)

    The point is in NKP you can feel though the FFB and from the way the car moves if you are close or on the grip limit of the tires and just like a real car you can keep testing the limit go slightly over and pull it back FAR FAR more than you can in RF2 and RF1 , and that's what makes it way more entertaing and believable to drive ( with the more gripy cars)

    "in proper sim you have to learn the car before really pushing it hard on the limit, because you can't feel g-forces."

    Thats the fundamental issue with grippy cars in RF1 , RF2 , I-racing , LFS , and makes them far less enjoyable to simply drive compared to nkp. It can make learning tracks a chore and far more time consuming that it is in reality and worse it punishes drivers that push and cuses more accidents when people are trying to out brake each other on the limit or taking different racing lines.

    Its also something that's very bad when you have a dynamic track as it makes it to risky for a driver to test the limmit mid race.

    Obviously as you say driving sims do lack Gforces and the depth of feel you get in real life and always will , and as you said as well its important that Sims don't put things in that comprise the model in other important places.

    Evan if you were to say NKP doesn't give you any feel or gage of how much you have before the tires lose grip do you not agree that when the tires do lose grip in NKP the cars are far more realistic than the cars in RF2 & RF1 ? , specifically in there willingness to grip back in and there stability and controllability once losing grip ?

    Lots of times in RF1 and 2 with grippy cars you get into a point of 0 control you have to back off compleaty and you are a hostage to the slide you are in , I would argue that in NKP and in reality that happens far less and when it does happen its for a far shorter time and only really happens when fully locking up.

    Sorry for the terrible spelling and grammar , I'm meant to be working so typing in a hurry lol !

    Also sorry for the long posts I'd be tired of myself by now , feel free to crash into me if we race online.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 25, 2012
  19. Spinelli

    Spinelli Banned

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    You guys kill me. Most of you don't even know how cars especially race cars react when on the limit of grip, especially pure corner speed and entry speed grip, you just get the back end out on exit or trailing throttle and than say wow I'm on the limit lol, your not, you just passed it for that split second you lost grip.

    Most of you guys don't know how race cars are supposed to react to situation x or situation y (I'm not talking about the bigger moments you see on onboard cams, that counts for like 2% of all the sliding and carrections you do in a race car when truly on the limit). But you all praise a game because it feels good in your hands and makes you feel very in control while still punishing you if you go too far. So that makes you think something is the God of all sims because it has a fantastic way to make you feel the car through your racing hardware. That's doesn't mean anything towards the physics, car reactions, what its supposed to be doing when you take half a second longer to complete your braking lift off phase entering a corner etc etc etc but hey you feel very in control and very natural, while still punishing, so it must be the most realistic, sorry doesn't work that way..

    ISI used to build/do simulation work for the military, they have been in the simulation game for what 20 25 years? If there is anyone to trust when it comes to physics/vehicle dynamics it would be them. Maybe not the very best when it comes to ffb if you want the most realistic pure steering wheel feel, but I think ISI physics engine is by far the best in terms of physics, how a tiny change in load through one side or one corner will just change the grip or balance that super super minutely amount from the lap before or even from the split second before, doing constant little corrections when on or close to the limit of grip, etc etc etc this is where I feel rF OWNS.

    Every sim has its physics flaws, I feel the rf ones mostly happen in situations you don't or shouldn't come across too often especially if you know what your doing, and if I had to choose where the flaws of a sims physics lie I'd have to pick those areas of course.

    I've raced and done many many test days of Formula 1600, Formula 2000 and had a 2 day prototype test in Italy (open cockpit 500 hp+ BMW engine). My friend (he's more a friend of a friend actually) has karted his whole life, has won national championships, has also won championships in Italy, competed in Star Mazda where he was a front runner and had wins, had test days with atlantics and was actually in talks with indy teams. With our experience we both like rf driving experience/vehicle dynamics the best, and ill continue to go by my real world and friends real world experience.

    You feel the grip and what's happening with the car wayyyyyyyy earlier in real life than in sims. You feel the car doing stuff wayy before you feel it visually or even way before you feel it through the wheel. If you ever push cars to this limit its like riding a tiny tiny wave, where your car is constantly grip then no grip and its almost sort of changing back and forth hundreds of times a second, I get this physics sensation in rf like no other sim, the car is just dancing on the line of grip no grip tiny correction or compensation in technique, grip, skip, slide, grip, grip etc etc. Just being on the absolute limit of grip and dancing the car around that line and STAYING on that line throughout the entire cornering phase and all the little edgy movements of the car trying to let go but your keeping it in line because your just riding that wave, is conveyed to me best in the rf physics engine over the others.

    Sure sometimes especially in rf1 the car doesn't give YOU the best of feelings because of ffb, so you don't feel as in control, don't know what the car is doing as much, and therefore things happen and you get frustrated because you don't feel a direct relationship with the car and what its doing, and then because of all that you judge bad physics because of a lack of “feel“ with the car. Well that's the most bs I've ever heard, you can't judge a physics simulation based on steering and ffb, what if the most perfect physics had a flawed and crappy ffb system. Then you guys would all be saying its crap too. It has to be judged by the vehicle dynamics how it acts, reacts,all the things being calculted, how realistic the result from all those calculations are, I'm not saying jus plug in numbers that's wrong obviously, unless you have the most accurate, complex, deep physics engine in histroy.

    Me and my friend know (in general) how these things handle and react when on the limit and how you have to get to know a car in real life and anticipate certain movements and reactions. Whoever said you don't do this in real life and just go by instinct well... lol well all I'm going to say is good luck at ever comming close to the absolute limit of the car and getting close to top laptimes of the “real“ good drivers if there are any in your series, because by good I mean “real“ drivers aka the ones who go on or have gone on to race in top series and be on or near the top, not the ones lagging behind 2, 3, 4, 5 or more secs/lap.).

    Rf vehicle actions and reactions/physics/vehicle dynamics OWNS in my real life and friends real life experience. Netkar gives in certain areas a better feel of the actual steering mehanism itself, which can mislead people into thinking its the God of sims due to feeling very in direct and very in control of the car, feeling very naturally actually steering and controlling a car. Too many people incorrectly use that positive steering feel and sense of realistic control to judge the actual super deep and complex vehicle dynamics simulation part. Especially those with little or no real life experience or ones who were slow and not really dancing the car on grip limits throughout the entire range of corner phase must get really mislead by that.
     
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  20. F2Chump

    F2Chump Registered

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    Can't say I agree regarding rf2.... certainty not in the F2, and maybe even the BT20, plus I like the way the F3.5 behaves now, as it's not defying/mystifying me anymore, but that's not to say it has the best FFB, but it does have some of the best braking FFB, and rf2 has a very prominent hi-speed FFB slot where both FFB and grip increase if you're carrying enough speed on the racing line.

    I have a stock G27, and rf2 still has the best FFB of any sim, even with a gimped ini.
    The feeling of brakes locking and weight shift is so much more dramatic in some rf2 cars that you react immediately, whereas in some of GTR Evo's cars, I can tell/hear brakes locking but I'm slower to react as it's not the same weight.

    I also put some emphasis on whether I feel like I'm really driving a car, and both F2 and BT20 do that in spades.

    NKP has heavy FFB at 1-2km/h, so the rate of change isn't as dramatic as the speed builds.

    It'll be interesting to see how the upcoming GSC Camaro performs, as the closest car in GSC to it is the V8SC and that certainly has a good mix of physics and FFB, but it's still a little dull for me, so add the best of that with bulk weight and controlability and I think that camaro could at least be some of the best sim racing fun, if not one of the better cars in general.
     

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